The debut solo release from singer/songwriter Conor Gains Band is likely to spread his reputation further than anything thus far in his brief public life and there are ten good reasons for it. Gains wrote nearly a hundred songs over a three year period in preparation for this project and, as a result, there’s not a single instance of filler to be found hearing this release. This doesn’t over-exert in that direction, but Compass does feel like a conscious swing for the fences, to use a baseball metaphor, thanks to the unabashed way Gains shakes up arrangements and blends multiple musical styles together over the course of the album and, often, in a single song. Compass will likely stand for some years to come as a representative of the best Gains produced during a particular artistic period and it’s an intensely human effort that’s unlikely to ever feel or sound dated.